Ashraf Kapadia, Chairman Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) stated this in an interview with ProPakistani recently.
He said that local universities are producing merely 50 percent workforce of the what market requires. Not only this, very few of these fresh graduates come with exceptional professional skills.
P@SHA chief mentioned that top-notch universities including FAST, NUST, GIK and few others institutes produce excellent graduates but their share is very limited, just around 1,000 graduates an year or so.
He urged that Pakistani IT universities should enhance their standards of the education as well as number of students to meet the growing demand of local and international market.
The local software houses are once again making high success to obtain handsome businesses in developed countries, particularly in US and EU markets, nonetheless they keep their firm focus on local market, which is also witnessing significant expansion thanks to multinational and private sector entities of the country, he added.
“I hire 40 to 50 fresh IT graduates every year for different positions but this figure will increase in next couple of years”, Kapadia said, who is also Managing Director of System Limited.
Pakistani firms providing IT and IT –enabled services to USA, UK and other Asian countries. Gaming and animation, networking, database and programming are major fields of the IT professionals of the country in which they are performing well.
Besides IT core fields, Pakistan IT firms are getting popularity in the sector of call centers and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).Medical, legal and accounting practitioners have also bright scope in foreign commissioned BPOs.
“Pakistan can compete with its neighbors’ particularly with India but we are lacking in our strength of workforce because students are reluctant to join IT field as their career,” P@SHA chief said.
“Students should work on their specific specialization in IT field for the bright future not only in the foreign countries but in Pakistan also – specifically in the field of content development for towering telecom sector”, said Mr. Kapadia.
“Jobs opportunities are tremendous and salary packages are attractive in the market but professionals are required to explore their expertise and equip themselves with the advancement of technology”, he added.
P@SHA members IT firms do provide internships to students in order to make them ready for the mainstream industry at the earliest, he concluded.
